This time, it’s not the economy, stupid | Opinion

Posted Apr 07, 2020

Back in 1992, the slogan about the economy might have been the winning phrase, but different priorities must be chosen as we battle COVID-19, a disease that has already taken more than 1,200 lives in New Jersey alone and threatens to take tens of thousands more. In this case, it’s NOT the economy, stupid, Raymond Lesniak says.

There’s a debate in Washington and among the public about saving lives or destroying the economy and destroying lives in the process. It’s not the first time politicians have wrangled over priorities.

Back in 1992, Bill Clinton’s political consultant, James Carville, helped focus the campaign by coining the phrase that helped propel Clinton to defeat George H. W. Bush and become the 42nd president of the United States: “It’s the economy, stupid.”

But different priorities must be chosen as we battle COVID-19, a disease that has already taken more than 1,200 lives in New Jersey alone and threatens to take tens of thousands more. In this case, it’s NOT the economy, stupid.

Indeed, easing controls on personal contact will extend the spread of the coronavirus, deepen and extend the recession and destroy more lives. But it’s NOT the economy, stupid.

Former New Jersey Gov. Tom Kean and the New Jersey Legislature faced a similar issue in 1983 when Kean signed legislation I sponsored, the Environmental Cleanup Responsibility Act (ECRA), which was one of the most powerful hazardous waste cleanup statutes in the nation.

The bill addressed a growing number of environmental problems in the state, which has a long history of both dense residential development and heavy manufacturing that involved both chemicals and petrochemicals. ECRA required owners and operators of industrial property in New Jersey to clean up their properties or post a bond to cover the cost of the clean up before the property was sold or operations ceased. The law protected the citizens of the state and put the cost of cleanup on the entity responsible for contaminating the soil and/or water and not on New Jersey’s taxpayers.

The business community, bankers, realtors, and developers opposed the legislation that, in their opinion, was going to ruin New Jersey’s economy. On the contrary, as history proved, with this powerful tool that cleaned up tens of thousands of contaminated sites in New Jersey, our economy has prospered.

History is repeating itself with the public policy debate underway during this pandemic. In this case, like the debate over the impact of ECRA on New Jersey’s economy, it’s NOT the economy, stupid. In order to save our economy, we have to control the spread of the virus.

South Korea can provide an example of how we can stop the spread. COVID-19 spread quickly there during the first two weeks of the outbreak, but then the number of new cases dropped steadily after they used employed several methods, including public distancing, technology-based contact tracing, widespread testing, real-time integrated tracking and analytics and a focus on the safety of healthcare providers, according to McKinsey & Company consultants.

Let’s end this inhumane and ineffective debate over saving lives versus saving jobs and take whatever steps necessary to contain the coronavirus.

It’s NOT the economy, stupid.

Raymond (“Ray”) Lesniak served in the State Senate from 1983 to 2018 and in the General Assembly from 1978 to 1983.